


A Price too high to create a second chance

by Shades_of_Shadow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Department of Mysteries, Female Harry Potter, Genocide, Harry is not okay, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Suicidal Thoughts, Ten Years Later, reference to child protitution, references to suicide- sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24256801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shades_of_Shadow/pseuds/Shades_of_Shadow
Summary: Harri Potter has changed in the 10 years since the Battle of Hogwarts- the not-so-final battle. Wizarding Britain is lost and Harri takes desperate measures. She ends the war at a price to high to give. And then she finds another way to save the world. Harri might be different now, but she still seems to make up plans as she goes. This plan gives a second chance. To whom you ask? To everyone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	1. To end it all

**Author's Note:**

> NOW with artwork on my profile, very easy to find. :) 
> 
> So I will try and stay inspired for this story, but life gets in the way of everything right?  
> Harri/Harry Potter is a girl, somthing I'm usually not a fan of, but then it just seemed right for this character storyline.  
> Basically everything was canon, apart from the 19 years later that obviously never happened.  
> Harri isnt Dark as such, just not Light and slightly messed up.  
> Sorry for the violence and gore.  
> Be warned I may change the title.
> 
> First chapter: brief suicidal ideation.

The Killing curse rebound- it should have been the end. The victory… it wasn’t.

10 years later…

Harri limped towards the plinth, air coming shallow and thin in the cold air. She knew what she had to do, what the remaining option was. Everyone was dead. Well not everyone, but everyone who mattered, who fought, who cared. The war should have ended 10 years ago, the ‘Final Battle’ as the newspapers had briefly reported, should have been final. But it wasn’t. It was only 7 days after the battle that Voldemort was resurrected after all. 

Harri gritted her teeth against the memories that filled her brain. The dead, the dying, the tortured and raped, the children, the disfigured or infected. Her loved ones as Inferi before they learnt they should have burnt the bodies when the people fell. And the sheep that bowed to the Dark Lord, that refused to fight and chose not to flee. They and the death eaters were who remained. That was what Harri told herself. 

She had become ruthless in the last 10 years, gone was the child who couldn’t cast the cruciartis curse, she had tortured and maimed and killed in the years gone by, she was ruthless. Yet this would be beyond all she had done before.

Harri realised she had been standing at the plinth for several minutes already. Minutes she could ill afford. This room lay deep in the Department of Mysteries, much deeper than her fifth year explorations of the department had been. It was a forbidden room. It was a room created to house a failsafe that no one should ever use. But what other option was there.

Wizarding Britain was lost, so utterly, so completely that Harri knew what she was doing was the only way forward. It was only a matter of time before the muggles discovered the existence of magic, and then all the magic societies around the globe would be hunted. It could be the end. Or Harri could stop it here, now, forever.

The plinth was round, made of a solid silver-like stone. It reflected the faint light of the few candles in the darkened chamber. The top was flat and no object stood upon it- the plinth was the weapon. On its surface lay circle after circle of runes, lines blended and twisting, turning in on themselves to create something powerful. And deadly.

Harri breathed in and out. She could do this. She would. And may mother magic judge her for she knew what she was about to do would be unforgiveable to any alive. Harri pressed her hands to the edge of the circle top, and the stone sliced through her palms. The plinth began to glow.

She watched as the blood began to pool and run through the runes, from the outer circles to the inner ones, closer and closer to the centre, as the plinth grew brighter and brighter. Harri vaguely heard banging from the chamber door, but it was too late, far too late. A humming grew from the very earth beneath the plinth, growing louder like static and wind and rain mixed together. Her blood neared the third last circle. Pressure like 30 thunderstorms compressed filled the chamber. Second circle. A stifling heat of hottest desserts rippled into existence. Last circle. The humming grew, a thudding beat of a heartbeat, a thousand beats of a humming birds wings.

Her blood touched the centre. 

Everything stopped for a single heartbeat. And then the light exploded, the heat turned cold, the earth stopped living. A rushing sound like the winds of the earth all came towards this spot- and.

Screams filled the chamber, thousands of them, Harri wanted to cover her ears her eyes, the screams of thousand beings, the screams of animals and plants, of merfolk and centaurs, of unicorns and of babes, children and people. The sound of a sentence worse than death for all those magical in Britain.

The sound of magic being ripped away from any that dwelled on the islands of Britain. Being ripped from the very earth. The end of magical Britain.

It took a minute for it all to end.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harri sat there for hours looking at the plinth that had ended the war. 

Ripping the magic from living things hurt, of course it would- she hadn’t expected to feel the earths pain as she did so.

But it was fair, Harri thought. Fair that the one to use this creation would be the one to experience all the pain and still live.

Most had died from having their magic taken. Harri would say about 95% of living magical beings had died. All the plants had died. All the lesser sentient but magical creatures too. But the beings- only 95%. Of the remaining 5%? 3% had gone insane- they were blabbering messes that would never ever recover. 1% had become comatose, they would never awaken. And the last 1% had survived, if you wish to call it that. They were squibs. That in itself was not such a big issue though. The big issue was that they were meant to have magic, they would feel like their link to life had been severed. Worse than a missing limb, a part of themselves was gone and would never return. Harri instinctually knew that most would succumb to deep depression or suicide within a matter of years or months.

The plinth had ended the war. There was no magical Britain left. Voldemort was gone, he was one of the 95%. No exposure to the muggles. And no foreign wizarding nations would come to claim the land. This land was empty of magic and would feel wrong to any with magic who stepped on it. Harri could attest to that.

The nature of the plinth was that the one who used it, the ones who were in the chamber at its time of use- they would retain their magic. So Harri alone was the last magical in Britain.

Harri wished she was dead.

She didn’t know how to move from this spot. What would she do now? Submit herself to the International Confederation of Wizards, run, live as a muggle? She didn’t want to be here. She wanted the end that she had given everyone else. She couldn’t feel anything anymore but the wrongness of the earth upon which she sat.

It may have been days later that she finally moved. And she was not conscious of her actions till she opened the door to the chamber and saw the dead who lay outside it. Her first instinct was to burn the bodies. Then she realised no one could make them into Inferi anymore. She smiled as she stepped over and around the corpses. It felt strange to not burn them. Habits were hard to break. People broke more easily.

She had drifted to the end of the corridor when she sensed it. It which shouldn’t exist.

Magic.

She quickly walked towards it, turning twice before reaching the door with a simple rune carved on it. The Jera rune. Harri stroked the two triangular lines, trance-like, in an anti-clockwise motion, and the door opened.

Inside was ice. The room was covered in frosty ice. The department held all kind of mysteries, but Harri hadn’t expected this. Jera meant many things, fertility, harvest, cycles, years—Time. And in the frozen room suspended by pure magic was a time turner made of ice. There was no sands in its hour glass, it looked empty, or more like filled with air. Harri walked around the hanging time turner her mind only half on the object in front of her. Possibilities floated through her head, Sirius and fifth year, Cedric and fourth, or Halloween 1981. She could prevent it all. She could stop so much death and destruction, save everyone. She could stop Vold-

Harri stopped walking. She could stop Voldemort. She knew where he was born. She could stop him before any of it began. One death, a million lives saved. She could stop him.

As if reacting to her thoughts the room began to warm, the magic holding the time turner shimmered, and Harri reached for the device of ice, thinking nothing more than the December night upon which Tom Marvolo Riddle was born. Ice touched her skin and the world span out of time, taking her along with it to another one.


	2. To have a choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the second section there is discussion of child prostitution/ rape is only implied, tried to keep it inexplicit. Also reference to Imperious assisted suicide.  
> Skip if you want- end notes has chapter summary if you do want to skip.

December 31st 1926, London

Harri stood in the freezing night air, huddled in the shadows of the alleyway where she sheltered from the biting wind ripping through the London streets. The device had worked. She had arrived hours ago, into the exact same place that she had been standing in the department of mysteries. She had quickly and invisibly exited the department, and it had taken a short time to gather enough information to apperate to Wool’s Orphanage. She now stood outside the forbidding building, to the side in an alleyway where she could watch for the witch bearing the Dark Lord. A quick killing curse and everything would be better for the world.

The winds still howled around the quite streets as Harri watched and waited for the woman to arrive. She wouldn’t survive the birth anyway. And this way neither would her son. It wasn’t until an 11pm that Merope appeared.

She was in rags. And coming from one who used to wear Dudleys old colothes and hadn’t changed clothes in months from previously being on the run, Harri’s judgment was saying something. Those rags weren’t fit to be worn by any, stretched over a swollen belly that was attached to a skeletal figure. Harri watched her struggle and faulter down the street, she would soon pass the alleyway in which she was situated. It would all be over soon.

Just as Harri moved her wand to point at the women known to be Merope Gaunt, the said woman spun to face her. They both froze, with Harri’s wand pointing directly at the pregnant woman. Merope seemed to coolly assess Harri for several moments. Her dark eyes seemed weary and tired as she asked “Did my brother send you then?”

Harri shook her head.

Merope frowned. “But you’re here to kill me, no?”

Harri nodded, vaguely wondering why she was hesitating.

Merope suddenly clutched her side and breathed heavily for a few seconds. It seemed to pass as she straightened up. “I knew that someone would get me, I thought the cold would first though. Will you let me give birth first?”

“No” Harris voice seemed as cold as ice.

“Why?” Merope simply asked.

Harri struggled to find the words. “because…. It’s a monster”

Meropes eyes flashed angrily. “My child is not a monster, my child will be better than all the purebloods that came before, my child will live a life of plenty, my child will do more than anyone else.” Meropes arms cradled her stomach and the child within.

“Your child will kill.” Harri said angrily “Your spawn will-“

“Have opportunities that I never had. They will not be controlled like me. They will live their own life. They will have a choice!”

Harri paused, Meropes words sounding odd in her mind. A choice. There was none- Voldemort must die. But all those years ago, when she had first heard the phrophercy, she wished she had a choice not to. She wished that Voldemort had made a different choice. Choice was never given to her, Meropes words shouldn’t have moved her at all. She had torn magic from the world, yet this defiant mother seemed to overpower all the ruthlessness she had possessed. Or possibly Harri had already used all her ruthlessness up, and was left with…. What?

Harri slowly lowered her wand. Merope looked surprised for a split second.

“Thank you” she whispered.

“You won’t survive.” Was Harri’s reply

Merope softly laughed- “my child will and be cared for…. They are all I have left of him. The only one who I loved…” she turned as she muttered towards the gate to the orphanage.

Harri watched as she collapsed at the doorway, the figures helping her in, while Harri slipped into the shadow. Less than 35 minutes later the crys of a baby could be heard coming from within.

……

The matron of the orphanage showed the wreck of a mother the infant.

The weak skinny women smiled as she said “he should be called Tom, after his father, and…” she coughed heavily “marvolo after mine”

As the young woman began to cough the child was moved away, to allow their attempts to save her life- all in vain of course. Merope Gaunt died in the first hour of the new year. And so began 1927.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harri snuck into the orphanage, invisible to all magical or muggle. She had let something get in the way of her earlier plan, but now she could complete it. So what if Merope’s words rang true, it was also true that Tom Riddle would be responsible for the deaths of thousands. _So are you._ Whispered a voice inside her head. She ignored it.

She passed two women on the staircase landing, and paused at the words.

“The child went silent the moment that woman died, I tell you. The very second- and it stares- they aren’t natural. There is something wrong with that child”

Harri felt something like anger towards the speaker, to similar to comments being made to the freakish child under the cupboard. But… the woman was right in this case, wasn’t she? Tom Riddle was a monster. She carried on upstairs.

The monster was in a crib on the second floor. The room was empty apart from him and her. It was perfect. She would save everyone with one death. She walked closer to the crib, wand raised and…

The baby with blue eyes gazed up at her. The baby started making cooing noises, small cries- raising a fist from the blanket and reaching out to her. The baby seemed to smile.

Cold dread filled Harri- she knew what to do and she wasn’t doing it. She wasn’t saying the two words that would end the Dark Lords existence. she found herself edging closer to the baby, lowering her wand and suddenly experiencing a déjà vu. Walking to a crib, a corpse in the way, red hair splayed, raising a wand to the babe in the crib and preparing to say the words to end them.

Harri stumbled backwards. She was not acting like Voldemort. Just because she had lived his memories from that night did not make them similar. He would kill a child just for a possible future, the future she was killing for was a certainty. They were not the same. 

_Except it is._ Harri shook her head, she hated doing this but there was no other way. None.

 _You can’t help it Harri, come walk with me._ Dumbledores voice in the train station- the monster was irredimable- she knew that she knew…

That Dumbledore was manipulative and sly and the best slytherin that ever became a gryfindor.

Harri’s eyes snapped open. She could change anything. And she wouldn’t have to kill anyone.

Harri left the room ignoring the baby’s cries. She went to the office of the orphanage director, she could charm them to like the child or something, or take the paperwork or- there were people in the office.

Harri frowned, it was the middle of the night. Why was anyone in there? Harri muttered a spell “perambulantio” and calmly walked through the wall. A man sat opposite the director, and they were in conversation.

“So when did you want to adopt the child, and for how long?” the female director asked, “not that there’s paper work or anything but the price is effected.”

“This weekend, for two days.” The man answered quickly. Harri was slightly confused by the discussion.

“Very well. Girl or boy? Any age, or preference in their experience?”

Harri felt sick. The conversation coming into immediate clarity.

“Girl, I ant no queer. And no one that screams to loudly”

The women muttered about being surprised how many queers there were.

“Hmm, Mary-Ann no longer makes much noise, she’s 8, I presume that is…”

Harri walked back through the wall, rage clouding her vision and her magic straining to come loose. She wanted to rip those people apart- all the adults in the house. There was no way they were ignorant. This ‘orphanage’ was a… Harri took deep breathes trying to control her magic and self. She had seen children captured by those death eaters who liked to… but she hated them and killed them more brutally then any others she hunted.

The man came out the office, saying “See you on Friday then”. The woman agreed and shut the door, neither noticing the invisable death glares they were receiving from a hidden witch in the shadows.

Harri raised her wand and didn’t hesitate to cast the Imperious curse.

The man froze. Harri strode quickly to his ear and whispered the commands.

“You will go home and write down every child you’ve hurt and every crime you’ve committed. You will post it to the police. Then you will go to the river. You will tie a weight around your ankles, tight enough to not come undone. You will cut off your hands and then jump into the river. You will remain aware but unable to stop yourself for every single second. And be thankful I didn’t have more time with you to make you truly sorry.”

The mans face morphed into one of horror as he began to move forward out of the orphanage towards his death. Harri watched him go face blank.

The baby wouldn’t be staying here. Not for a single night.

With a few moments thought Harri apparated to Little Hangleton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harri is in 1926, meets Merope before she gives birth and she brings up the matter of having a choice, resonates with Harri from never really having one. Harri lets her give birth in the orphanage, but extra time taken means she only names him Tom Marvolo.  
> Harri sneaks into the orphanage to kill the baby Tom, but when faced with the baby cannot because parrallels to her actions and Voldemorts in killing children for future actions/possibilities.  
> Goes to office of orphanage, finds man discussing things with head of orphanage. Imperious curse used to make man confess and take own life. Vows not to allow the baby to stay. Apperates to Little Hangleton.


	3. Making and breaking plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harri's plans fall apart.... she puts them back together again. Maybe they will work better?

Thomas Riddle sat in an armchair in an ostentatiously grand room, echoes of the last guest leaving the new year celebration barely reaching his secluded spot. He had missed the house immensely he thought, a slight shudder passing through him as his thoughts took him close to his time away. Tonight, had been nearly unbearable- all those discreet glances and whisperings in his direction- yet Tom Riddle knew it would pass. His family had too much money for it not too.

Thomas Riddle leant back in his chair, before a cough sent him jolting into standing. A woman was in the room, if her current state of dress would permit him to call her that. She was wearing trousers, of all things, and her hair and state of cleanliness reminded him of the street ruffians.

“What are you doing here woman?! You do not have permission to be here.” He practically shouted. If this woman was a thief, she would not get far he internally smirked.

The woman stepped forward into the light of the few gas lamps still lit and his confidence took a dip. This woman looked dangerous, she seemed to be dressed in a kind of reptile skin, like a crocodile, and although she wore trousers, her jacket was longer at the back, almost to the floor. But more than her garments were her eyes, a shade of green that almost… glowed?

Still, she was just a woman. “I will not ask you again, so answer or you will find yourself in trouble with the police, girl.”

The woman smirked.

“I come with news of your son.”

Her voice he noted was rough, almost disused. He noticed this alone, for the words had sent him into a state of paralysis. Fear and hate coursed through him in equal measure, until disgust grew to overthrow them both.

“I. have . no . son” his words were spoken with such vile and distinct revulsion, that it seemed to shake him as he spoke it.

The woman tilted her head.

“Yes, you do. He is named Tom Mar-“

“I HAVE NO SON!” he roared, and the women went silent. He breathed deeply.

“That… woman’s spawn is nothing to me. It will never be anything, but a disgusting filthy FREAK like them. It should be drowned at birth, just like its mother should die. That whole family and its blood should be wiped clean from God’s earth. An abomination, a stain, a creature of devilish nature, a-“

“You will not take him” the statement came out both as a question and a statement.

“Never.”

The woman nodded once. Then quicker than a snake a piece of wood was pointing at him, and by the time his face paled the woman spoke one word.

“Obliviate.”

…..

Harri looked at Thomas Riddle’s blank face as she removed all memories of her and of Merope informing him of being pregnant. He looked so similar to the monster she knew, but the differences were in the features too. But deeper than looks… “You sound like him, your anger- it’s the same.” She said to the unresponsive man, before ending the spell and disappearing into the shadow, leaving the muggle to celebrate the new year.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She stood over the crib in silent confliction. She didn’t know what to do. The baby was equally silent underneath her gaze, it’s thumb in its mouth, eyes closed. 

Killing it would still be easier. _Him._ She corrected herself, the baby was a him, not an it or thing or freak.

Harri turned away from the crib. How can I be so weak, she asked herself, so what if it was a baby it was still Him, the monster, killing it was the simple easiest solution possible. Vague memories of right and easy from a senile old man echoed in her head. Which she ignored. Completely.

But if she wasn’t killing it ( _him_ ), and the father was a swine, and the orphanage was reprehensible and would shortly be empty of adults, then who was to keep it ( _him_ ) ? 

She could leave him on a muggle doorstep with spells to make them keep him. _Well yes, because that worked out so well for you didn’t it?_ A snide voice in her head commented.

She could find a nice muggle family… how she wasn’t sure, and what if even a nice family turned to hate when exposed to the unexplainable?

So the wizarding world then? Except there were no orphanages there, and a lot of discrimination of muggleborns… which it wasn’t but… _Crap._ The Gaunts were still alive technically- so he would go to them? Harri shook her head, that would not work either. What the hell was she going to do with this child!

Harri paced back and forth unable to think of a way forward apart from killing it and becoming more anxious over the impossible situation by the second. A crazy notion of raising it herself passed her mind- but she couldn’t. The baby began to wake and with a soft cry opened its eyes, which seemed to freeze Harri in place.

She crossed over to it ( _him_ ), gritted her teeth and picked it up. Her mind detached as she automatically shaped her arms to cradle the child, watched as it seemed to snuggle closer to her warm body. Then her mind caught up. Harri had to restrain herself from flinging the child from her, she froze stiff as revulsion and the need to vomit course through her. Memories flashing by of all the pain and suffering and tortured and dead.

She couldn’t keep him. It was too much. But she was now afraid of putting it down, fearing that if she did, she would leave altogether. This was too hard.

She began to pace again, unknowingly soothing the baby back to sleep.

More wild theories flew through her head, up to and including forcing the royal family to adopt it. All shot down for logical reasons, or so her mind classed it.

She could do this. Harri felt her breath quicken as she tried to find a way not to kill the thing in her arms. It just needed to be raised right, it just needed a family and-

Harri stopped pacing. Her thoughts flew quickly by, so quick even a natural legilimens wouldn’t catch them. It took only seconds for Harri to commit to the plan. She glanced down at the child and looked away just as fast. Taking a deep breath, she apparated away from the orphanage, and silently prayed to magic that this plan would work.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harri stared at the manor in front of her. It was nothing like the ostentatious palace of the Riddle’s or Malfoys. In fact, it didn’t look much like a manor at all. A heavy big stoned turret of a medieval castle sat on the right side an old weathered rook reminding her Luna’s home. She shook her head free of the memories of her screams. The rook was connected by a smoother built rectangle structure two stories high with a large domed roof and three floor-to-ceiling windows along its sides. It was then connected at a right angle onto an old large red brick Tudor like house, with large windows and beams visible on its exterior. A smaller turret could just be seen behind the house, and a large orchard encased in an old brick wall lay to one side of the dwelling, with a river flowing on the other. The house was situated almost in the centre of a low sloping valley of hills and forest, illuminated by the crescent moon and a thousand stars.

Harri had apparated on to a large crop of rocks a considerable distance from the house, as she had been unsure of the location. This was the third place she had apparated to, the first was where she knew a grand manor had, or as it turns out, would be. It had been particularly disorientating to appear in an empty field before she remembered she was in the past. The second location was Godric’s hollow, but the cottage was empty and devoid of life and so she had remembered the third place where she currently stood.

The child shifted in her grip. She shook herself from observing the landscape and started to descend toward the house. She was unfamiliar with it, for the house did not exist in the future, it has been destroyed in the late 40’s when the remnants of Grindelwald’s followers had attacked. It had been described as the last attack and end of Grindelwald’s influence from inside the prison in the last chapter in the book entitled the rise and fall of the Dark Lord Grindelwald. All she knew was its location and who the historic manner belonged to.

The Potters.

Harri had discovered a few years ago a wizarding family genealogy book. She had taken it to attempt to find death eaters family manors or estates and had learnt from it a lot of her own family’s past.

The potters had always had tight relations to the muggle world, and that had earned them much condemnation over the last few centuries. They had kept doing business with muggles after the statue of secrecy and the European wide witch burnings- and through doing so had managed to survive various wizarding world economic recessions. They were as old as the sacred 28, but not members, and through varied marriages, was related to most of wizarding Britain. It allowed them to maintain lots of broad relationships, even while being unpopular for there continued muggle ties. Harri’s mother was not the first muggle born to marry a potter but there were not many, and she was the first in over a two hundred years.

When Harri had first learnt the information, she had been simultaneously happy and angry. Happy to know and angry that she had never known even the vague history of her own family before. Harri had used that anger to burn many of the death eater manors to the ground.

The child snuggled closer into her.

Harri had maintained strict occlumency shields since her earlier urge to drop or throw it from her grasp. As long as those shields were up, she could dissociate from the fact that the child held in her arms was the monster of her future. But it moving wasn’t helping her shields at all. Harri quickened her pace.

She prayed to Merlin that her ancestors would take the child, because she couldn’t bear to hold it for much longer and feared her initial response would mean…. Harri prayed harder as she drew closer to the manor, finally reaching its shadows and began searching for a door to enter the Potter’s Estate House.

She had to travel around the rook to find a door, entering a cobbled courtyard with plants strewn across it. She reached for a humble wooden door, rather than the main door which while also wooden was decorated in carvings and metal studs. Her plan of sneaking in however was ruined as soon as she touched the door, as humble or not, her touch sent a loud reverberating swell of magic across the house, alerting the owener to which the wards where tied of her arrival.

It seems she would meet her ancestor soon. Which one she didn’t know. Hopefully what she read would be true. Hopefully they would take the thing (child) and she could go slaughter those muggles. Hopefully.

Harri sighed She didn’t believe in hope anymore.

Ignoring the alert ward and pushing her way past a few others, Harri for the first time, entered her ancestral home. 

_Come what may._

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews make me feel all warm and happy inside.  
> But Kudos are nice too.  
> Happy Lockdown, stay safe.


End file.
